


Waiting At Your Window

by starstruck1986



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4069060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruck1986/pseuds/starstruck1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can't remember the last time she slept. Her children are in danger - she doesn't even know where Ron is. How could she sleep not knowing where he is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting At Your Window

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Mental Health Conditions showcased – anxiety & insomnia; angst, mild language
> 
> Written for the Livejournal HP Mental Health Fest 2015.

Struggling to breathe, Molly flew into a sitting position, blinking into the darkness of their bedroom. Seconds felt like minutes as she sat there, her lungs making an odd, strangled wheeze as she forced herself to take in air.  
  
Dampness on her cheeks caused them to start to sting with cold. Beside her, she saw the stillness of her husband’s legs. She’d not woken him, at least. She groped for her wand on the bedside table and felt a familiar jolt of magic sweep through her as it settled into her touch. She swung her legs out of bed and gingerly pressed her feet to the floor; the house was held up on a wing and a prayer and she never failed to be amazed that it stayed propped up on so little with so many extensions having been added on top.  
  
As it was, the house was fuller than it should have been. But it was not _full_. And that was what was keeping her awake at night. Only a matter of hours ago they’d been celebrating a marriage – the start of a life together. But everything had gone horribly wrong and now they were all a prisoner in their own family home and Ron – well. Just thinking his name made her throat threaten to close up.  
Molly crept across the bedroom, her feet freezing and clumsy as they tried to navigate around all of the floorboards likely to squeal or creak beneath her tread. She glanced back over her shoulder at Arthur, sleeping freely and carelessly on his back. His head was to one side. He looked so much like Ron without his glasses on.  
  
She forced herself to take a deep breath and stepped out onto the landing. Her fingers had started to tremble and so she clenched her hands into fists to try and nip it in the bud. In the night, like this, when she awoke after sometimes only twenty minutes of sleep, or was struck with panic when she couldn’t sleep at all, she did what she could to stop the situation progressing into a full blown panic attack. She’d always been nervous. A worrier. Her mother had said she’d always seemed to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, even when she was tiny. Her twin brothers had been enough to give her grey hairs at fourteen. Her own sons were the same.  
  
Gideon and Fabian, if they were watching her, would be furious with her for giving herself over to the anxiety. But she felt she had little choice in the middle of the night when there was nobody to be strong for - no choice, even. It swept her up when she tried to be strong herself. It claimed her when she was already weak. No rhyme, no reason. Just sheer panic, terror and no ability to control it.  
Her feet had carried her upstairs whilst she’d been caught up in her own mind. Right up to the threshold of Ron’s bedroom. The door was shut. A sign proclaiming it to be her youngest son’s property hung by a years-old strip of Spellotape. His handwriting was childlike and faded. He’d never quite learnt that a sign would do very little to stop the will of Fred and George.  
  
She wandered into the room, letting the door stay open behind her. She went straight to the bed, just as she had the night before and dragged the knitted patchwork quilt off the top. She wound her fingers in it before lifting it to her nose and inhaling. It smelt so completely of her youngest boy that it made her throb with agony and uncertainty.  
  
She had known it was a possibility that Harry would go and take both Ron and Hermione with him. No, it was a possibility that Harry would _go_ – not that her son would follow. That was an absolute given, because if she bred anything, it was intense loyalty to the point of stupidity.  
  
After one more sniff, Molly draped the blanket around her shoulders and clenched it tight over her chest. She moved to the window and look down over the yard. It was a dark but clear night. The moon was on the other side of the house, however, and the garden was all shadow. Releasing the corners of the blanket that she clutched, Molly put her hands to the bottom of the rickety, rotting sash window frame and pulled it up. Night air flooded in. In any other circumstance she thought it might have been sweet.  
  
But Ron was missing and two children pretending to be adults that she cared deeply for were with him. She could only hope that they were safe, or being safe – or were as safe as any of them could be with a tyrant vying for power. She remembered the fear of the late seventies and early eighties, a young mother with tiny tots about her feet, wondering if they might all take their last breath in the middle of the night and see the morning in murdered in their beds.  
  
Fear had crippled her then as it crippled her now.  
  
Without looking she reached over to the small chest of drawers and pulled it open. On top of Ron’s oldest and most holy – therefore neglected – underwear, was a small carton of cigarettes and a box of matches. Without paying attention to the motions, she popped one between her lips and lit up. She took a deep, calming suck and exhaled the smoke through pursed lips.  
  
She had a fleeting thought that she should shut the door, because if any of her children found her smoking she would never live it down. She flicked some ash away into thin air – magical cigarettes were so much _better_ than their Muggle counterparts. Again, she could never confess to how she knew that. Gideon and Fabian had been rebels from a very young age, and though protective of her, they’d always sought to open her eyes to new experiences which would have made their mother’s hair curl even tighter.  
  
Despite herself, the situation and the hour, Molly couldn’t help but smile at the memory of them, and of their mother, the perpetual battleaxe that she was.  
  
She had tried to emulate her, but she often wondered if she’d succeeded. Her two eldest boys had flown far from the nest. Percy no longer spoke to the family and just the mention of his name made her eyes wet. Fred and George were an echo of the past – rebellious, cocky, headstrong. Ron had been a quiet child, forever mired in his desire to please – to be loved. Ginny, the only girl. How did her sons feel, she wondered, that there were no more children after that girl? A single female in a sea of testosterone. Did they ever question whether they were wanted? Did the younger ones ever question that if, perhaps, the one before them had been a girl, they wouldn’t exist?  
  
The thought made her shudder. She knew that she could be pedantic – her expectations of her children were as high as they were of herself and her husband. But that was only because she wanted the best from them. She wanted each of them to fly high – as high as they could and to be happy, so that she could take pleasure in their happiness.  
  
She’d always wanted a big family. As big as she could get. And the reality was that after six pregnancies and seven children, her body had had enough.  
  
 _Seven pregnancies._  
  
Her mind gave her a painful reminder of the twins she had conceived, and half-carried, before she had successfully carried full term with Bill. None of her children knew about those lost babies. She didn’t have any particular reason for not telling them – just that they had never asked. Why would they? They surely assumed they had enough siblings; that their family was just as it should be without having to question why there were no more.  
  
She smoked some more of her cigarette whilst her innards ached for the children she’d lost.  
  
Molly directed her thoughts to something that, in the past, had helped her. But the night before it had just made her panic even more. She remembered her children as they were as toddlers.  
  
Bill – the first, the most protected. She recalled having a fit on finding him eating something which had fallen on the floor during cooking. His upset tears were noisy and loud; he was an intelligent little one, but he hadn’t understood her anger. Charlie had suffered for her extreme first time fear; rather than eating things that had been _on_ the floor, he ate things _in_ the ground due to her lax approach. Worms. Snails. And he was messy. Most food ended up in his hair or over his face and whilst Bill had been pristine, Charlie was mostly filthy from birth until the age of thirteen when he started to care about the way he smelt. Percy, her third baby, had been quiet and clever – easily hard done by, though. His tears were saved for when he needed them – when they could get him the most benefits. But she was older and wiser by that point. Sometimes she’d let him have his way purely to shut him up. Her hand took on a nervous shake when she wondered if this had made him what he’d become as an adult.  
  
She’d thought herself a seasoned mother by the time she was due to give birth to the twins. It had been a fraught pregnancy, her brain unable to switch off and forget what had happened the last time she’d had two sharing her womb. But they’d come quickly and safely, and there ended the peace of mind. From the get go they were trouble and the house hadn’t been ready for their whirlwind. Explosive diarrhoea and vomiting. Round the clock, unison screaming and crying. By the time they were eight months old they were performing magic in fits and starts and it only ever got worse. By the time that Ron came, they were beyond her control which made her feel like a failure as a mother. Ron was sweet but tempestuous, he reminded her in many ways of Percy, yet he seemed to have Charlie’s ability to get into anything, even her make up.  
  
Ginny, on the other hand, had had no interest in her make up at all. She’d been happier in the mud, chasing her brothers on unsteady legs, determined that they would not beat her at anything. She threw food she hated on the floor. She was stubborn. And yet she’d made Molly smile. And through all of them – through the vomit, the half-chewed worms, the stench of shit up the walls, Arthur had been a constant. A part of her was sad that none of them were tiny enough for Arthur to hold in his long arms any more, smiling at their closeness and the sweetness.  
  
Now they were all grown up and the stakes were so high that they’d pushed her right to the end of her cigarette without her even really noticing. She stared at the stub in her fingers in wonder before grinding it out on the peeling surface of Ron’s windowsill. She held it between her fingers, chancing the heat from the tip.  
  
It smouldered for a moment and then faded. With the death of the ashes her chest tightened. Her hand started to shake. She flicked the butt out of the window into the darkness below. If anyone found it, they’d be more likely to assume that it was Charlie’s rather than hers. Charlie pretended he didn’t smoke whilst everybody knew he did, but nobody said anything.  
  
It surprised her that in a family as large as theirs, sometimes they were all perfectly content to hold their tongues over certain things.  
  
With a deep breath, Molly put her hands up and pulled the window back down. She sniffed and willed her mind to be strong for the day ahead, trying to give herself a little mental shake. She turned around, ready to head back to bed and lie awake looking at the ceiling until she reached an acceptable time to get up and pretend she’d been asleep all night.  
  
“Oh!” Her hand caught a lamp as she started in fright. It went crashing to the floor as she blinked dumbly at her husband in the doorway to Ron’s room. “How long have you been there?”  
  
“A while.”  
  
Arthur was leaning against the door frame, his arms folded over his chest and his ankles crossed. There was something about the vision of him there which took her back to the beginning, where he was a funny, lanky boy in her year at school whom she sent coy smiles and eyelash bats at.  
  
“Your mother would turn in her grave if she’d seen you doing what I’ve just seen you doing.” Despite everything that was going on, he was smiling. “Smoking out of the window like a naughty schoolgirl. At least now we know where Charlie gets it from.”  
  
“Gets what from?”  
  
Charlie appeared at Arthur’s shoulder, his wand drawn and with a brow furrowed with worry. “I heard a bang,” he explained. “Are you both all right?”  
  
“We’re fine. Ron never liked this lamp anyway.” Molly stooped and started collecting parts.  
“As long as everything’s okay.”  
  
Molly glanced up at the meekness of his tone. She saw him repeatedly rubbing his thumb over the wooden handle of his wand and understood. He was scared. Her second son, the burliest, the one who did battle with dragons by way of a job.  
  
Even though it made her hate herself, she was relieved to see it. She was not alone. Her fears were mirrored in another.  
  
“Get back to bed,” Arthur advised him.  
“No point. Can’t sleep. Tea?”  
  
“Just give us a sec.” Arthur patted Charlie on the shoulder. He waited until Charlie’s footsteps were much lower in the house before he continued. “Molly. How long are you going to pretend that you’re sleeping like a log every night? I know you’re not. The kids know you’re not.”  
  
“They’re not really kids any more…”  
“They’ll always be our children.”  
  
Arthur crossed the room and put his arms about her. He kissed her on the forehead and then buried his face in her hair.  
  
Ever so slightly, the tightness in her chest eased. She wormed her arms around her husband in return and closed her eyes.  
  
“Exactly, Arthur. He’s my _child_ and I have no idea where he is. What he’s doing. I have no idea. I feel like the worst mother in the world. And I can’t even find him and give him a hug and tell him that I love him. What if he doesn’t know I love him? What if he dies, Arthur, and he doesn’t know that we love him?”  
“Ron knows that we love him.”  
“Does he?”  
“Of course he does. What makes you think he doesn’t?”  
  
Molly hesitated. She had never shared what she’d heard two summers previously.  
  
“What is it?”  
“I heard him… a few years ago. When he got the prefect badge over Harry.”  
“What did he say?”  
“He said that he couldn’t believe it. That he had finally managed something that his parents would be proud of. That they’d care about.”  
“Who was he talking to?”  
“Himself.” Molly blinked away some tears which sprang up. “He had no idea I was outside the room. He had no idea I was listening.”  
  
“Teenagers say all sorts of bollocks, Molly. You know that, you’ve raised seven of them. You _were_ one. I can remember you throwing a strop once because I sat on the edge of your cloak and made it wonky.”  
  
She smiled at the memory.  
  
“Come on. Let’s go down to the kitchen. And then, madam, you’re having some sleeping draught – no arguments.”  
  
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “What if something happens and I’m too drugged to react? They’ll murder me as I sleep-”  
  
“Sweetheart, they could do that anyway. But for Godric’s sake, you need a good night’s kip and there has to be a line.”  
  
“I don’t want-”  
  
“Molly.”  
  
She glanced up at him. His eyebrows were raised.  
  
“Arthur…”  
  
His resolve only lasted a few moments longer before he sighed and shook his head. “Fine. But if you plan on drifting around this house, you needn’t be alone.” He laced their fingers together. “We will get through this Molly, together, like we have everything since we got married. And maybe, at the end of it, our family may not be whole any more. Maybe none of us will be whole again. There’s no shame in being terrified of that, of letting that fear take over you.”  
  
He lifted her hand and kissed it.  
  
“Come on. Tea.”  
  
-fin-


End file.
